Imagine the shock of Lakers fans who watched Kobe Bryant refuse to shoot for the entire first half Tuesday night.

Imagine the utter amazement one particular courtside patron must have experienced seeing that unfold.

It happened in the Lakers’ 91-85 victory over Phoenix at Staples Center on a night that had already begun with Lakers Coach Mike D’Antoni calling it a “mystery” that his club hadn’t discovered the magic of the pick-and-roll, even with Steve Nash running the show.

Add the riddle and enigma of Metta World Peace making outside shots, Dwight Howard driving from the wing for a basket and Antawn Jamison scoring 14 points.

Or Will Ferrell serving as an usher during a timeout, only feet from where Shaquille O’Neal sat.

Good thing it was the lowly Suns playing the foil, though even that proved to be a little dicey for the Lakers (25-28), who are trying to tread water in the playoff chase while Pau Gasol’s foot heals.

Bryant’s four-point game was his lowest since scoring five in a game three years ago.

“It was just one of those nights, he was trying too hard to get everyone else involved,” D’Antoni said. “You’ve got to walk the fine line and he went way over the end of the line.

“He’s got to get back in the middle, where he facilitates and is aggressive. It’s got to flow that way.”

Howard led the Lakers with 19 points and 18 rebounds and actually threw down a key dunk in the fourth quarter after setting a screen for Nash.

“Teams having been playing us different ways, and even those guys were mixing it up a little bit,” Howard said. “We just had to find a way to make it work. It’s still a work in progress. It’s tough because every team plays a different way, they always mix it up. It’s not like we see the same thing.”

Yet it still puzzles the coach.

“It should be that way all the time,” D’Antoni said. “If he (Howard) will get with Steve and they can get that going, they’ll get some easy buckets.”

Jamison added 19 points and 10 rebounds off the bench and was on the floor down the stretch instead of starter Earl Clark, who had tests for foot soreness earlier in the day.

Bryant shot 1 for 8 and the Lakers lived to tell about it. He did have nine assists, but only one in the second half.

“We have great players on this team, and if one guy has a night where he’s not playing well, the guys have to step up,” Howard said. “He’s not going to have nights like this all the time.”

World Peace, mired in a shooting slump, hit two 3-pointers and scored 17 points.

Bryant finally took a shot with 7:30 left in the third quarter, a missed 3-pointer from the wing. He missed his first seven shots.

The Lakers shot 53.7 percent from the field in the first half and took a nine-point lead, which was promptly erased when they made only 3 of 17 shots in the third period with six turnovers and entered the fourth trailing, 71-65. No picks, no rolls.

Then they found a way to connect.

“We were way overthinking the game,” D’Antoni said. “Every once in a while we have these nights where we can’t figure out who to make happy.”

Or at least how to initiate Nash’s savvy.

“It’s a mystery. I don’t know why we’d even be talking about it,” D’Antoni said before the game. “I’d think that would be the staple of what we do. It isn’t, and we’ll keep trying to work on it, keep getting it better. That’s probably a big step we could take if we could get that established. Then we’d have Kobe doing his thing, and then the pick-and-roll is going, and that’s what we need to do.”

Define “thing.” Bryant passed up several shots in the first half, though he did have eight assists in the first two periods.

That was supposed to be Nash’s job, right?

“The ball is not in his hands all the time, and one of the reasons is the pick-and-roll has not been effective,” D’Antoni said. “We’ve taken the ball out of his hands a little bit but we need to get him involved, we need to get his balanced approach between he and Kobe and it’s got to be a constant drumbeat throughout the game. It can’t be one or the other. That’s something we’ll keep working on.”

D’Antoni had few complaints about the Lakers’ defense, and they scrambled back into the game with a series of hustle plays and took an 81-75 lead when Jamison plucked Bryant’s airball and put it in.

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